Hands at Work
Scrape on the river bed
Raise the rocks like you raise the dead
Pick the ground with the axe find the hole
Take out its claws
Clip Devils toenails, shells and barnacles
Imbue
with life ammonites and Brachiopods
Bring them back out of the dark
Lying there mud-bound for millennia quite
happily
Read the lie of the land
This slope that dip
Roll up the rocks lift
With your hand
Dig up the turf,
Throw it down
Bore into the bank like a thief for the
sand
Use the spade to cut out cubes of stringy
Rooty sodden peat, that is so water logged
You can hardly lift it
Precious, so precious this harboured flesh
Like a surgeon cutting out the Fat of the
Land
It takes grit, it takes belief to make a
path
A determination to reclaim that little
piece of wild
The Path through the Pines
Pine wood pale against brown bark
Wooded blatant without a spark
Dull, latent furry animal warm
Yet like the scales of a reptile
Unmistakably firm
Acidic, acrid needles that hurt
A floor of compass pins
Lost in a haystack
Thorns pin-dropping in the dark
Wait listen and hear the wind
Through them stir
That chandelier rustle
Of glass blades chill shattering
As wraiths in the firs
Wet and waiting soldiers of Mur
Waiting to be roused by one of the three
kings
The father leylandii bristling their beards
Then the spirit returns
In convection raising moss and fungal
spores in religious
Direction
Until intoxicated the whole Pine forest
stirs to listen
The glass wood splits, leaf pins shimmer
and shiver their timbers
The holy Ghost of the hill side has
breathed
And her sigh is felt overhead
As a guide to the spirit world and the lost
traveller
Taking the path through the wood
Lost in translation – the Scottish
accent
We broke 900 lights last night
We broke 900 lights
Next month we hope to break the one
thousand mark
She said with some pride
I was abhorred – you mean you smashed them
all of them?
On your own?
She looked at me quite dazzled
Said “it is as if you are an alien”
I said ‘light bulbs?’ still disbelieving
She said one word “Facebook”
And then, because I still wasn’t getting it
- she reiterated more clearly
“I said Likes!”
Cow Hill
The cow jumped over the moon mama
The cow jumped over the moon
I saw it there where the scare crows stare
And the lovers in arms do croon
Upon Cow Hill my dear
The frogs are leaping and the moon is clear
But the heavy heifers are lowing
Their orange manes are blowing
But no cows jump over the moon.
But I swear, I swear mama, mama
That I saw it all the same
What you saw were the Cows on their way
back Home
Down the track from where they came
Cow Hill Surrealists
Yeast on risen hills
Wind blown
To unleavened valley floors
The rock cakes, moon rock, bakes
The hot-hearted peoples
Maroon and move
In battle with cattle
They lock horns
Of the army of moos
Down on cow hill
Factories of Aluminium Shields resound in
chants
Rio-tinto, Rio-tinto in tribal tones
And tin soldier, drummer boys
Who plough fertile moon fields
That lay in conspicuous towering caravans
And lessen the lassoes from
The wild musket rams
